In recent times, automation of offices is rapidly becoming a reality for an increasing number of organizations. Office automation helps the organizations integrate data files with text, store and retrieve correspondence and reports electronically, distribute documents electronically and support the day-to-day activities of administrative personnel, professionals and managers.
While some of the benefits of electronic document processing can be realized from a single, stand-alone office system, a network which connects office systems in various locations in the organization increases the productivity of the organization. Physically, a network is a combination of interconnected pieces of equipment and programs used for moving information between points where it may be generated, processed, stored and used. From the viewpoint of an user of the network, the network is a collection of services which are useful in creating, revising, distributing, filing and retrieving documents.
In today's electronic office, documents are physically grouped or stored using one of two following techniques: partition data sets and directories. Partition data sets are storage areas on a disk or other form of storage medium. Documents stored in a partition data set only exist in that storage area and a partition data can not be deleted until all of the documents included therein have been removed. Generally, the documents are filed in the partition data set in the order created and there is no other relationship regarding the order to the documents.
Directories are similar to partition data sets in that they are physical storage areas for documents for files. Documents can not exist in more that one physical storage area. The documents contained in a directory are not logically organized.
In regards to both the partition data sets and the directories, if one filed a group of documents which are related to a general topic and one wanted to review the group of documents, one would have to first locate the partition data set or sets or the directory or directories containing the documents. In partition data sets and directories, documents have to be deleted from the bottom up. It is very difficult to re-arrange documents using these techniques because the documents have to be copied and then deleted. This type of retrieval technique reduces the efficiency of the electronic office.
These prior are techniques facilitates the display of a list of documents which are stored or grouped in a partition data set or directory. However, since a document may be in more than one file, it becomes necessary to know which files contain a particular document. It is not sufficient to know what documents are in file. Knowing where a document exist in the system becomes necessary in maintaining the integrity of the data in the system.